R'lyeh Strategies

[JaydedOne]

I prefer to go to land in the midgame at the earliest, unless there's a small patch/peninsula that's largely surrounded by water and can thereby be easily protected by a fortress. Aside from Atlantis or possibly Ermor, there's no competition for water resources early in the game and you should therefore snatch them up as quickly as possible and mine them thoroughly with Voice of Tiamat/Akashic Record (depending on your preferences in research.)

The advantages of land (hybrid spawning, greater variety in magic sites) aren't overwhelming initially and the biggest problem I find with them is that, due to R'lyeh's generally slow speed, it's difficult to send reinforcements to land provinces given that your best units are recruitable only in water. I prefer to bide my time, build forts near the coastal provinces that I want to start my aggression outwards at, and even let my opponents conquer indy provinces first, as they'll often move their forces elsewhere, leaving only PD behind. PD, in most cases, is easier to crush than indies on a high setting. This way you have solid reinforcements coming from the water directly next to your landing point. After that, you might consider consolidating your land presence with a quick fort+lab build, as nobody loves to see squids on shore. The lab will be a huge plus as you'll now have Gateway potential to speed up reinforcements to land AND you'll now have access to all the land-only summons you've hopefully been hoarding gems for.